“Then you will undoubtedly understand the definition I shall now make of philosophy.  But before I make it, I shall challenge you to point out error in it or to remain a silent metaphysician.  Philosophy is merely the widest science of all.  Its reasoning method is the same as that of any particular science and of all particular sciences.  And by that same method of reasoning, the inductive method, philosophy fuses all particular sciences into one great science.  As Spencer says, the data of any particular science are partially unified knowledge.  Philosophy unifies the knowledge that is contributed by all the sciences.  Philosophy is the science of science, the master science, if you please.  How do you like my definition?”

“Very creditable, very creditable,” Dr. Hammerfield muttered lamely.

But Ernest was merciless.

“Remember,” he warned, “my definition is fatal to metaphysics.  If you do not now point out a flaw in my definition, you are disqualified later on from advancing metaphysical arguments.  You must go through life seeking that flaw and remaining metaphysically silent until you have found it.”

Ernest waited.  The silence was painful.  Dr. Hammerfield was pained.  He was also puzzled.  Ernest’s sledge-hammer attack disconcerted him.  He was not used to the simple and direct method of controversy.  He looked appealingly around the table, but no one answered for him.  I caught father grinning into his napkin.

“There is another way of disqualifying the metaphysicians,” Ernest said, when he had rendered Dr. Hammerfield’s discomfiture complete.  “Judge them by their works.  What have they done for mankind beyond the spinning of airy fancies and the mistaking of their own shadows for gods?  They have added to the gayety of mankind, I grant; but what tangible good have they wrought for mankind?  They philosophized, if you will pardon my misuse of the word, about the heart as the seat of the emotions, while the scientists were formulating the circulation of the blood.  They declaimed about famine and pestilence as being scourges of God, while the scientists were building granaries and draining cities.  They builded gods in their own shapes and out of their own desires, while the scientists were building roads and bridges.  They were describing the earth as the centre of the universe, while the scientists were discovering America and probing space for the stars and the laws of the stars.  In short, the metaphysicians have done nothing, absolutely nothing, for mankind.  Step by step, before the advance of science, they have been driven back.  As fast as the ascertained facts of science have overthrown their subjective explanations of things, they have made new subjective explanations of things, including explanations of the latest ascertained facts.  And this, I doubt not, they will go on doing to the end of time.  Gentlemen, a metaphysician is a medicine man.  The difference between you and the Eskimo who makes a fur-clad blubber-eating god is merely a difference of several thousand years of ascertained facts.  That is all.”